· Public charity
Open Philanthropy Action Fund
The mission of OPEN PHILANTHROPY ACTION FUND is to study and promote more effective giving for public policy, advocacy and social welfare purposes.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 29 grants below total $16,815,139 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $37,359,496 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $20,544,357 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $9k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $243k
- $50k–250k13 grants · $1.5M
- $250k+7 grants · $15M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ACCOUNTABLE JUSTICE ACTION FUND | $6,400,000 |
| AMERICANS FOR RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION | $2,948,728 |
| PLANT BASED FOODS ASSOCIATION | $2,500,000 |
| VITAL STRATEGIES ACTION FUND INC | $1,740,378 |
| COMPETITIVE MARKETS ACTION INC | $629,000 |
| BREAKTHROUGH ENERGY ACTION INC | $404,409 |
| CENTRE FOR THE GOVERNANCE OF AI INC | $400,000 |
| CAMBRIDGE BOSTON ALIGNMENT INITIATIVE INC | $180,000 |
| RETHINK PRIORITIES | $180,000 |
| MALNUTRITION ADVOCACY FUND | $163,083 |
| DIGITAL HARBOR FOUNDATION INC | $150,000 |
| YIMBY ACTION | $120,000 |
| PLAYERS PHILANTHROPY FUND | $110,000 |
| ZETEO TECH INC | $108,785 |
| FARM ACTION FUND INC | $106,800 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $821k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
Grants abroad, by region — $19M on the FY2024 return
Schedule F, as filed: 9 regions, $18M to organizations and $1.4M to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: LEGAL INTERVENTION FOR FARMED ANIMALS · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SAFETY · FARM ANIMAL WELFARE
Stated purpose: FARM ANIMAL WELFARE · PIG WELFARE REFORMS IN SOUTH KOREA · RESEARCH AND ADVOCACY PROMOTING GLOBAL HEALTH IN EAST ASIA
Stated purpose: FARM ANIMAL WELFARE · CAGE-FREE EGG FARM AND TRAINING CENTER · INDIVIDUAL GRANTS PROGRAM
Stated purpose: FARM ANIMAL ADVOCACY · AI SAFETY ACTIVITIES · INDIVIDUAL GRANTS PROGRAM
Stated purpose: CAGE-FREE CAMPAIGNS IN PERU · FISH WELFARE · INDIVIDUAL GRANTS PROGRAM
Stated purpose: INFORMATION SECURITY TALENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
Stated purpose: FARM ANIMAL WELFARE
Stated purpose: FORECASTING NEWSLETTER
Stated purpose: INDIVIDUAL GRANTS PROGRAM
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +9% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
35 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4.3M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- AJACCOUNTABLE JUSTICE ACTION FUND7× · 2017–2024 · $57M · revenue ×11 · 95% of their budget
- TATIDES ADVOCACY5× · 2017–2021 · $12M · revenue +130%
- PBPLANT BASED FOODS ASSOCIATION5× · 2018–2024 · $6.9M · revenue +191% · 82% of their budget
Funded once
- PCPrevent Cruelty California a Humane Society Committeeone grant, 2018 · $4.0M · 35% of their budget
- EIECONOMIC INNOVATION GROUP INCone grant, 2023 · $1.2M · revenue -12%
FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTSgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $1.0M · revenue +211%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities and the climate.
Using legal advocacy to make advances in science and technology safer for people and the planet.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
The center for ai policy (caip) is a nonpartisan research organization dedicated to mitigating the catastrophic risks of ai through policy development and advocacy. operating out of washington, dc, caip works to ensure ai is developed and…
Fund for Justice is a nationally connected social impact research and advocacy organization that works to achieve fundamental, systemic reform by addressing policies and practicies that prevent individuals from reaching their full…
Clean Tomorrow advances policies that reduce climate emissions by turning policy ambition into action. We work to catalyze rapid change that will accelerate the innovation and growth of clean energy.
Foreign Policy For America is a nonpartisan advocacy organization founded to strengthen support for principled American engagement in the world.
The Organization unleashes the creative potential of the law to protect people and the planet from corporate abuse.
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
Center for Humane Technology is a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that the most consequential technologies actually serve humanity. We bring clarity to how the tech ecosystem works in order to shift the incentives that drive it.
E3g is a leading international not-for-profit think tank specialising in climate diplomacy harnessing expertise in the politics and economics of climate change.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Americans for Responsible Innovation Ltd and the most unlike its peers is Charak Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 10 years old; the field is 16. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 25% of your grantees by number, and just 15% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
82 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 82 of the 103 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds ACCOUNTABLE JUSTICE ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds Breakthrough Energy Action Inc ↗
- Who funds TIDES ADVOCACY ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIANS AGAINST PANDEMICS ↗
- Who funds California YIMBY ↗
- Who funds MALNUTRITION ADVOCACY FUND ↗
- Who funds PLANT BASED FOODS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Prevent Cruelty California a Humane Society Committee ↗
- Who funds OPEN NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds VITAL STRATEGIES ACTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICANS FOR RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION LTD ↗
- Who funds IFP ACTION ↗
- Who funds EMPLOY AMERICA ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds Greater Greater Washington ↗
- Who funds ECONOMIC INNOVATION GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds COMPETITIVE MARKETS ACTION INC ↗
- Who funds Abundant Housing MA Inc ↗
- Who funds Polaris Research Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS ↗
- Who funds 1DAY SOONER ACTION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Just Liberty ↗
- Who funds CAMBRIDGE BOSTON ALIGNMENT INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds EFFECTIVE VENTURES FOUNDATION USA INC ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE'S ACTION INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Global Challenges Project Inc ↗
- Who funds VOTERS ORGANIZED TO EDUCATE-VOTE ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds CHARAK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Floridians for a Fair Democracy Inc ↗
- Who funds COLOROFCHANGEORG ↗
- Who funds Sightline Institute ↗
- Who funds CANOPY RETREATS INC ↗
- Who funds REDWOOD RESEARCH GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds Californians for Stem Cell Research Treatments and Cures ↗
- Who funds REGIONAL PLAN ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Humane World Action Fund ↗
- Who funds Global Animal Partnership ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Good Ventures Foundation · Sixteen Thirty Fund · Tides Advocacy · All Hands on Deck Network Inc · Effective Ventures Foundation USA Inc · Accountable Justice Action Fund · Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Advocacy · State Engagement Fund · Center for Community Change Action · Open Society Action Fund Inc · See Forward Fund Inc · Humane America Animal Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Open Philanthropy Action Fund funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Digital Harbor Foundation — 2% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Open Philanthropy Action Fund?
Find your warmest path to Open Philanthropy Action Fund through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.